17 February 2015

"Meconomics": ME-Economics

I’m sure everyone or most have heard of the words microeconomics and macroeconomics – where microeconomics looks at single factors/products/services and the effects of individual decisions (for instance what happens when I increase the price of the product I’m selling) and macroeconomics works with aggregates, looking at entire markets or the economy as a whole (what happens if the price of oil increases in the economy). However, in my economy studies I haven’t come across a single word that describes how we live economic decisions and apply ‘market logic’ in our personal lives – so here I am making one up: Meconomics, short for ‘ME-Economics’.

Sure – we can say ‘what you’re looking at is psychology – not economics!’ And yes – I am looking at psychology – but I’m looking at economics in the same extent as I am at psychology. Here is an example of how our Educational system enjoys fragmenting reality – breaking it up into bits and pieces so it can neatly fit in a particular box – and, apparently, what fits in the Psychology-box does not fit in the Economics-box. It’s mind-boggling to consider that economists may have never had any psychology course at all – that’s like a doctor not being trained as a nutritionist! (Oh wait, that’s the norm... case in point!)

If you take a moment to consider you’ll agree that psychology should be at the basis of our education – because everything we do, we do as a human being; How can we understand politics if we don’t understand human behavior? How can we understand economics if we don’t investigate our inner relationships with giving and receiving? How can we understand the function of the body if we don’t take account of the effect the mind has on it? How can we understand law if we don’t understand the law of our being? In other words: How can we understand the world if we don’t understand ourselves?

So – Meconomics will be a series of blogs investigating how we are maintaining the status quo of the economy on a micro and macro level through applying/living out the same logic, the same reasoning, the same models in every day life, whether it pertains to decision making, relationships, community living, self-image, socializing, parenting, siblings and so on and so forth.

If you have any ideas for topics to include in this series, feel free to leave a comment so I can dedicate a blog to it as part of the series. Let’s cover new ground, new ways of looking at economics, new ways of looking at ourselves – so we can become aware of how we are in fact, through the principle ‘as above, so below’ creating the rules of the game that determines human life on Earth in so many ways.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Leila, I have some ideas. How is the desire for acceptance and comparison fueling this economy? I thought about many products that we buy to fit in with our friends, for example, buying a pair of very expensive shoes, only because of the brand, because our friends like that brand- how fashion increases the demand for certain products....I thought also about fear of death and the economy, how is our fear of death influencing the decisions we make as consumers and business owners?....I thought also about fear and trust and its relationship to speculation...

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  2. Thanks Bitia! Cool topics to open up - will take them on ;)

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